It sounds like u/BlisteringCold took that to the conclusion of “he’s not reliable,” though. It would only be Gell-Mann Amnesia if he’d failed to make that connection.
Are you sure? The original formulation of the term sounds like he’s talking about the trustworthiness of a specific source, given how he likens it to an individual continuously lying and uses “the newspaper” rather than “a newspaper.”
Briefly stated, the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect is as follows. You open the newspaper to an article on some subject you know well. In Murray's case, physics. In mine, show business. You read the article and see the journalist has absolutely no understanding of either the facts or the issues. Often, the article is so wrong it actually presents the story backward—reversing cause and effect. I call these the "wet streets cause rain" stories. Paper's full of them.
In any case, you read with exasperation or amusement the multiple errors in a story, and then turn the page to national or international affairs, and read as if the rest of the newspaper was somehow more accurate about Palestine than the baloney you just read. You turn the page, and forget what you know.
That is the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect. I'd point out it does not operate in other arenas of life. In ordinary life, if somebody consistently exaggerates or lies to you, you soon discount everything they say. In court, there is the legal doctrine of falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus, which means untruthful in one part, untruthful in all. But when it comes to the media, we believe against evidence that it is probably worth our time to read other parts of the paper. When, in fact, it almost certainly isn't. The only possible explanation for our behavior is amnesia.
It’s not necessarily bad to apply the principle everywhere, but strictly speaking, that’s not the phenomenon it refers to.
But still overseen and endorsed by the same editorial board. We happily say “The NYT/CNN/MSNBC/etc.” sucks, and while we also call out individual anchors and writers for sucking in specific ways, it’s understood that each organization as a whole suffers collective failings.
It sounds like u/BlisteringCold took that to the conclusion of “he’s not reliable,” though. It would only be Gell-Mann Amnesia if he’d failed to make that connection.
It's the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect if he doesn't apply the concept to EVERY person on Youtube, TV, radio, newspapers, everything.
Are you sure? The original formulation of the term sounds like he’s talking about the trustworthiness of a specific source, given how he likens it to an individual continuously lying and uses “the newspaper” rather than “a newspaper.”
It’s not necessarily bad to apply the principle everywhere, but strictly speaking, that’s not the phenomenon it refers to.
You turn the page and the article is written by someone else.
But still overseen and endorsed by the same editorial board. We happily say “The NYT/CNN/MSNBC/etc.” sucks, and while we also call out individual anchors and writers for sucking in specific ways, it’s understood that each organization as a whole suffers collective failings.